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Stop the Corporate Public Lands Grab
Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), chair of the House Resources committee, is trying to eviscerate existing U.S. mining laws thereby giving multinational corporations control over much of our public lands -- whether they contain minerals or not (except those withdrawn for another purpose like a National Lands supposed to be held in trust for all Americans, now and for future generations, would be sold off -- this time for $1000 per acre, far below the resource value of the lands. In 1995, President Clinton placed a moratorium on these give-away "patents" and the moratorium has passed in the Interior appropriations bill each year since.
Dear [ Decision Maker ] , Subject: Oppose the Mining Amendments to the Budget Reconciliation bill The proposal's pedestrian title disguises an attempt to legalize the largest corporate land grab in U.S. history. This initiative would open more than 270 million acres of publicly owned lands -- land that is supposed to be held in trust for all Americans now and in the future -- for purchase by foreign and domestic corporations and other private interests. Adding insult to injury, claimants under the law would no longer have to prove that their claims contain minerals in order to purchase the public's lands nor pay royalites on any valuable minerals removed. It's apparent Representative Pombo's mining amendments to the budget reconciliation package aren't about mining or the federal budget at all. It is simply a direct effort to privatize public lands and create windfall profits for mining companies and developers. For example, under the proposal, developers could claim lands on the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park adjacent to the Park border, purchase them, and then build a massive housing development. This scenario could be repeated both inside or outside National Parks, Wildernesses, and anywhere else on public lands not specifically withdrawn from mining. Rather than bringing the hopelessly outdated 1872 Mining Law into the 21st Century, this language would actually worsen the problems that make the archaic law such a public rip-off in the first place. Congress has a responsibility to manage the nation's public lands for the benefit of all American citizens, now, and for future generations. Please, don't let this unconscionable act happen on your watch.
Sincerely, |
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| Background Information |
Pombo's proposal is stuck in 1872
By John Leshy
Well over a century ago, to help the mining industry and Western settlement, Congress decided to sell federal lands to miners for no more than $5 per acre. Since then, the price of an ounce of gold has increased from almost twenty-fold, but — thanks to the 1872 mining law — the price of gold-bearing public lands has not changed one cent.
As recently as 1994, the law gave a Canadian mining company title to public lands containing an estimated $10 billion worth of minerals for less than $10,000. In response to the massive publicity surrounding the sale, Congress enacted a bipartisan moratorium on the giveaway of federal lands. Today, companies can still mine on these lands, but they cannot buy them away from the public.
A new budget reconciliation proposal by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, would end this ban and resume the privatization of our public lands. His bill requires the Interior Department to sell off lands for $1,000 an acre or the fair market value of the land surface, without regard for mineral value. Simply put, the “smash and grab” proposal would allow public lands worth their weight in precious metals to be sold to mining companies for a pittance.
The bill also eliminates the requirement in the law since 1872 that companies actually discover valuable mineral deposits on public lands before they gain rights to exploit them. This rollback would dramatically increase mining companies’ control of public lands.
Not satisfied with this liberalization of the discredited 1872 law, Pombo would also let private interests buy federal lands for purposes that have nothing to do with mining, such as building ski resorts, gaming casinos and strip malls on areas owned by the American public.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that “the federal mining law surely was not intended to be a general real estate law.” Pombo’s bill would change all that, and the first open house could be held inside Death Valley National Park.
While a last-minute amendment ostensibly protected national parks and some other areas, this amendment exempted “valid existing rights.” There are more than 900 mining claims in our national parks, including 286 in Death Valley alone. Claim owners will likely assert rights to purchase these lands, and they could succeed.
Moreover, other invaluable sites, like wilderness study areas and national forest roadless areas, are plainly left vulnerable to eventual privatization under this provision. Hikers, hunters and livestock grazers could find locked gates blocking their passage through previously public lands — with the U.S. government nearly powerless to do anything about it.
Pombo is trying to sneak his bill through Congress, hiding it in a budget debate that has been dominated by higher profile controversies. He pushed the bill through committee under the pretense of raising federal revenue, without mentioning that the public, the owner of these lands, will be the big loser.
Hard-rock mining is the only extractive industry that pays no royalties on the resources it removes from public lands.
Establishing a modest 8 percent royalty, which is at the lower end of what coal, oil and gas companies already pay for federal resources, would yield twice as much revenue as Pombo expects from his land grab.
William Stewart, the rabidly pro-mining Nevada senator who wrote the 1872 Mining Law, steered it through Congress and then made a nice living representing miners, would not have dared to try this. But he did not know Pombo. As public lands become private real estate and trail markers give way to “No Trespassing” signs, one can almost hear Stewart chuckling in admiration of Pombo’s audacity.
John Leshy was Solicitor of the Interior Department under President Clinton, is a distinguished professor at University of California Hastings Law School and is a member of Grand Canyon Trust Board of Trustees.
Thanks to Knight-Ridder/ Tribune News Service who originally published this article